The Cat-Man - A Poem

A little unusually this week, I thought I'd share a poem I wrote a number of years ago that still brings a small smile to my face. Hope you enjoy it.

With final exams and papers all due this week, and an imminent trip to the UK, I suspect I won't have much time to write for Mythic Writing, so expect this to be the last post until January 6th. Have a wonderful new year!


The Cat-Man

There is a man in an empty bus stop
Somewhere in Istanbul,
And all day long, he sits and waits,
And watches with a wary eye
The people that pass him by.

And as the people walk their way,
He hisses like an angry cat
He thuds his head against the glass -
The people jump with surprise and fear,
No one dares walk near.

But in a quiet moment,
When he sat there all alone,
As I passed, I thought I saw
A knowing smile upon his lips,
A smile that said -
“I know which one of us is mad.

Rewriting Radiance - Tiferet Edition

Complete links to the first draft of Radiance (my kabbalistic fantasy novel) can be found here.

Progress on rewriting Radiance continues, albeit rather slower than I would like as real life complications, such as expecting our first child in the next 8 weeks, get in the way. But I wanted to share some revisions from the fifth section of the novel, entitled Tiferet/Adornment.

In the first chapter, entitled Good to Give Thanks to the Lord, Emma Grunfeld, Asher's mother, journey's through the heavens to encounter the divine. In the early part of the chapter I described roads of fire and ice, concluding:

"Emma’s mind was full of ice and flames. But she had to keep moving.
    A wall rose up before her eyes, a wall of sapphire stones, refracting the light into a million shards of green and blue. "

But I realised that this was a very abrupt transition from the heat and cold to the sapphire stones. I also decided that I wanted more phrases that were redolent of biblical and rabbinic texts. Combining both of these issues, I came up with the following solution:

"Emma’s mind was full of ice and flames. But she had to keep moving.
    And then the heat and cold was no more, like streams that overflow with thawing ice whose water vanishes in the dry season.
    A wall rose up before her eyes, a wall of something like the appearance of sapphire stones, refracting the light into a million shards of green and blue."

Continued after the jump...

Tales of the Dreamscape - Treasure House - Part 1

The deepest cave in Dreamscape’s shifting land,
Beneath the wondrous home of Duke and consort,
Contains the greatest treasures that the world
Has ever known, or dreamt in midnight hours
When the moon is low, and the stars are free and twinkling
In the cloth of softest night and darkest sky.
Wherever gold has glittered, silver shone,
The cave of dreams is there, gently waiting -
And all your treasures are contained within
Where all desires begin.

And when the wind blows cold from northern climes
With diamond snow from Dreamscape’s farthest shores,
The proud and lordly Duke of Dreams trembles,
Seeks refuge in the cave of ancient trove,
Wandering winding ways among the gems,
That shift their forms as the dreamer lingering stares.
He finds a treasure never seen before,
Inspects it with his bright and piercing gaze -
The choicest prize your mind has deftly wrought,
Is there as solid thought.

The High Holy Days - A reflection

While getting in the mood for Yom Kippur, I found this reflective piece I wrote last year about an encounter on the plane back to New York - what actually happened, and what, perhaps, I could have done differently.

Normal service, with a new chapter of Radiance, should begin again next week. If you're keeping Yom Kippur I wish you gemar chatima tova - may you be sealed in the book of life.

    “Are you learning gemara?”
    I crane my head, surprised and interrupted by the previously nondescript young man sitting two seats over, raising his voice over the background roar of clouds and jet engines.
    “Yes, I’m about to,” I respond.
    The flight from Heathrow to JFK is long and drawn out, a skein of wool pulled across oceans and stretched between worlds. My seat is resistant and makes me squirm, though it still feels good to sit at all after the long day and night of standing before God. The gates are closed now, and so I sit, and prepare to prepare for normal classes to resume.
    “Could you study in the memory of my friend who passed away, Jessica Spengler?”
    (I don’t know if I looked at him then, though I like to imagine that I took a moment, a pause, to see who was sitting next to me, the man himself. But maybe I didn’t. Maybe I never saw him at all.)
    “She wasn’t Jewish,” he adds.

Shells

I'm afraid that with Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur coming up very soon (eep!) I'm going to have to take two weeks off from Radiance. I hope that you will forgive me, and will join me for the next chapter on October 1st (or more likely the 3rd after Sukkot).

In the mean time, I offer a short poem that I wrote some time ago, and I expect to put up another such offering next week.

I would like to take this opportunity to wish you all a happy, healthy and sweet new year! May you be inscribed in the book of life for a life of peace.

Shells
We dance upon a plane of ice
A skin across a vat of blood.
How brittle is this skin of self,
How thin the ice we tread;
A crack - and all that was white
Is red.

The Garden of Destiny

The Garden of Destiny

Wandering Destiny’s garden
I stopped to rest a while,
And sat upon a fresh-hewn seat,
To break from the relentless beat,
With endless miles
Before my feet.

I found I did not wish to rise
So peaceful was my chair,
So calming every breath I breathed,
No cause to cry or laugh or grieve -
All of my cares
Had been reprieved.

I feel the sun upon my face
As it climbs across the sky,
I watch the rose and ivy grow,
But when and how, I do not know,
And wonder why
I do not go.

A Poem

In Passing

Some things are not meant to last;
Like the delicate touch of the butterfly,
Kissing my cheek tenderly
And flying into the sun.

Lost Words - The Final Chapters

Time to bring Lost Words to its conclusion. I hope you've enjoyed reading it as much as I enjoyed creating it. I'd love to hear what you think.

THIRTEEN
As the wintry weeks passed,
Their love, forged in fierce fire,
Flourished and flowered
And grew stronger than steel;
In March they were married.
The city celebrated their union
And came to watch the warriors’ wedding.

Lost Words - Parts 11 & 12

ELEVEN
When consciousness came again
Acute pain was all he was aware of -
He noticed nothing else.
But gradually he learned that he lived -
He had another chance to change things.
The bard banished the burns
To the back of his brain,
While there was breath in his body
He would battle the beast.
He opened his eyes cautiously
And cast them round the cave.

Lost Words - Parts 9 & 10

NINE
By midday Varan had made the mountains.
He contemplated their colossal cliffs
And wondered how he would continue to the west.
He need not have feared though
For he found a veiled valley,
Masked in a melancholy fog.
While the air was moist with the mist,
The valley lay as dry as dust
Screened by steep slopes on all sides.

The gorge was guarded by green trees,
That grew to heavenly heights
And stood decaying in the dank semi-darkness.
The mushrooms and mosses were multiplying,
Burying the bark beneath their bodies,
Slowly sucking the sap of their host,
Draining the trees dry
While the rot took firm root.
Out of life, was death reborn,
And from that death came life.

Lost Words Audiobook - Part 3

Click on the title to listen to my reading of part 3 of Lost Words.

Lost Words - Part 5-8

This is the last section of Lost Words that I will be posting for now. Hopefully I'll catch up with some audiobook files soon but on Sunday I'll post something completely different.

Lost Words

FIVE  
Varan stepped into the sunlight,
Emerging from the cliff into crisp, clean air.
His midnight masked mentor motioned him on
And he saw below, spread to the south, a city.

The tallest towers seemed to touch the clouds,
Made of glittering gold and glistening glass;
And marble monuments, majestic and magnificent
Were placed in perfect circles across the plain;
And in the centre stood a silver dome,
With a carved column at each corner.

“It’s beautiful!” he breathed in awe.

“Are you so quick to judge?”
The masked one replied,
“Look once again,
And then decide.”

Varan looked closer.
The soaring spires, so splendid at first sight,
Were cracked and crumbling;
And the monuments formed a mausoleum,
Dedicated to the dead.

“What happened here?
What terrible fate?
That so fair a city
Lies in so fallen a state?

“Go and find out,
You continue alone,”
Culann stepped back,
And melted into the stone.

Lost Words - Parts 3 & 4

Lost Words is divided into 16 parts, within which are 4 divisions of 4 parts each. This post concludes the first part of the poem. I hope to post the rest of the first half this week, as well as audio-files to go with them. The remainder will be posted after my reading at the Uptown Salon in a few weeks time. Enjoy the third and fourth parts of Lost Words:

Lost Words

THREE
Across a storm-lashed landscape,
Lit by lurid lightning,
Through the torrent of water that washed the world
In murky mud and mire,
Thundered two horsemen, as spirits of the storm,
Riding the wind as it whirled and wailed.

The horses, half blinded, hurried on,
Faster than thought, they flew through the night;
Every pace plunged into pools of mud,
Spraying filthy foulness all around.

But through the night and through the noise,
Through the muck and through the mire,
Varan’s soul was soaring.

Lost Words Audiobook - Part 2

And here's part 2. Click on the title to listen to the track or download it if you prefer.

Lost Words Audiobook - Part 1

This is something of an experiment but since I believe poetry, especially alliterative verse, is supposed to be heard, I am beginning to create an audio version of Lost Words.

Click on the heading to go to the file and let me know if you enjoy it.

Lost Words - Parts 1 & 2

When I was 17 years old, I became quite ill with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Frustrated by my inability to function, I found I didn't even know how to write about what I was experiencing. We were studying Sir Gawain and the Green Knight at the time, and somehow the idea of composing an epic poem in alliterative verse popped into my head. Who was my hero? It could only be a poet who had lost his talents. Thus was born Lost Words. Parts 1 and 2 can be found below, continued after the jump:

Lost Words

ONE
In the age of Arthur, the most honourable king,
In the years of Sir Gawain, the gallant and good,
In the days of Sir Bedivere, so brave and so bold,
At the height of the righteous round table,
When Camelot was gold;